


Idiosyncrasy

by milliej_child_of_hades



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Steve Harrington has a sister, The Author Regrets Nothing, i'll add more as i write more - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-07-09 23:40:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19896289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/milliej_child_of_hades/pseuds/milliej_child_of_hades
Summary: Genevieve is a bright and gifted young soul in a wealthy family. Her mom wants her to be popular, her father is always busy with work, and her brother despises her because she's dweebish. With one decision, she's swept up into the fate of a missing classmate, a bald escapee and three boys on bikes. What next? The lights start telling her to run?





	1. The Rat-Nest and the Principal's Couch

“Gen! Time to get up, sweetie!”  
“Hmmfp,” I groaned, rolling over and staring at the ceiling. Why was the sky so early today? Couldn’t school just wait another couple of days, or another never? Mom’s incessant rapping on my door wasn’t helping either.  
“Genevieve! Up! Now!” I could hear her heels clicking on the floor as she went to go wake up my useless brother. I rubbed my eyes and waited for the black dancing spots to disappear before going and getting changed. I donned a pink and purple dress tied with a brown braided belt for my mother’s sanity. Chucking a cardigan over the top and grabbing my empty bag, I bolted down the stairs. I just had to beat my brother to the table, otherwise, he’d shovel all the food into his mouth in one foul swipe.  
“Morning, Gen. How many times before your mother got cranky this morning?” My father was always at the head of the table, reading the day’s paper, the smell of coffee ever-present on his words.  
“Hi daddy, only two today. But that’s 'cause of the idiot upstairs.”  
“Genevieve! Language! You don’t call your brother an idiot. That’s rude.” My mother had decided now was the perfect time to walk down the steps. I swung around to see her glance back up the stairs. She shouted, “Steve, breakfast!”  
Mom then huffed and muttered to herself while grabbing the brown lunch bag from the fridge and handing it to me. I took it and stowed it in my bag with one hand, using the other to shovel as much bacon and egg onto my plate as I could. Dad was already finished his coffee and paper, grabbing his briefcase from beside him, kissing my mother on the cheek before patting my hair and leaving. Steve plonked down the stairs and fell into a chair.  
“Ew.” I stared at him, his hair still looking like a rats nest. Why he did it like that, no one would know.  
“Shut up, dweeb. You’re ew.” Steve took his fork and smirked as he took a piece of bacon from my plate.  
“Mom! Steve’s using your hairspray again!”  
“You’ve got no proof.” Steve chomped on the bacon.  
“Yeah, I can. What’s today’s date?” I was matched with silence. “Exactly, you’re breathing it and it’s making you even dumber.”  
“Genevieve! Steve! For the love of God, stop fighting! Otherwise, you lose that car of yours.” Steve’s mouth dropped. I laughed at him. “Don’t think you’re getting off scot-free either, missy. Stop instigating things. Now I have to get to the salon today so I look presentable for when your father and I go away for his business meeting.”  
Mom cleared the dishes and kissed my forehead, grabbing her handbag and backing out the front door. Just as the door was shutting, she said, “Oh and Steve, can you be a sweetheart and drop your sister at school this morning?”  
The door slammed shut and Steve looked at me in disgust. As if I would want to go in his car, it smells like him and he smells bad.   
“Nuh-uh. Not happening, I’m not letting a nerd into my car. You can ride your bike or walk, I don’t care.”  
“Like I would want to go with you. Who knows what you’ve done in that car. Or should I say who you’ve done?” And with that, I ran out the back door, swinging my bag onto my back and grabbing my bike. The middle school wasn’t far from where we lived, and I was there in no time flat. 

I wasn’t fond of school at all, it was just about sitting down and pretending to care about whatever was happening in each class. Most students just looked out the windows and waited until lunch so they could talk with their friends or run around and chase each other or eat. But that wasn’t me, I didn’t have friends. I did hang out in the library though. Mrs. Arnold was old and wrinkly and smelled like musk sticks, but she would leave odd jobs for me like reordering the books and putting the returns back on the shelf. Our school was trying to be cool too and had bought a tonne of stuff that was about making campaigns in Dungeons and Dragons. Usually, a group of four boys would come in and read through them, talking about how to make their campaigns better. Of course, I knew them from Mr. Clarke’s science class. They sat up the front and won competitions together. I wasn’t gonna hang out with them, because my mother would kill me; she already thought I was apart of the popular girl’s group. If she actually knew that I didn’t care about pink or popularity or hair appointments, she would flip her shit. And that’s putting it politely. Not to mention, that Steve would find out, cause he’s obsessed with frenching Nancy Wheeler at the moment, and her brother is in that group. And then he’d tell mom, and I’d die.   
But today was different because as I sat in the back of Mr. Clarke’s science class, flipping through my own textbooks - not really, they were Steve’s and we all know he doesn’t use them - only three of the DnD team were sat upfront. The one that was super pasty and had a brown bowl cut was missing, I didn’t know any of their names, just their appearances.   
I waited until the end of class to go and ask Mr. Clarke if I could do something harder than the set curriculum. Gathering my books, I went up to the front desk, as Mr. Clarke spoke excitedly to the boys. He looked past them as they bounced out the door. “Ah, Genevieve. How are the questions going for you? Any difficulty?”  
“Quite the opposite. You see, I’m reading my brother’s textbooks and they make complete sense to me. I was wondering if you have anything else that could keep me occupied during classes?”  
“If you follow me, I just have to let the boys into the AV room, and then we can carry on to my office to see if we can scrounge up something.” I nodded to him in response.  
I could instantly tell which room was for the AV club as all three boys were milled around it. Mr. Clarke opened the door and in the middle of the tiny room was a teal radio. The boys were milled around it, flipping switches and turning dials. The headphones were swapped between each boy as they horribly imitated Australian accents. The only boy in the group whose name I actually knew, Mike, looked up and acknowledged me.   
“Hi, do you want to come and try it?” My eyes bulged and I shook my head. I turned around to Mr. Clarke hoping that he would ask me to follow him to the office.  
“This was what I was going to perhaps let you work on during class, Genevieve. I can grade you on the regular test but give you extra credit for learning how to operate this so that we might be able to contact people overseas.” Was he kidding? It sounded cool, but I didn’t know these kids or the radio, how was I meant to learn it?  
“It’s a Heathkit ham shack, isn’t it awesome?” The boy with the lisp pulled me over to their side. I didn’t know how to respond so I just nodded and smiled meekly.  
Just as the headphones were handed in my direction and I was strongly considering running away to hide in the bathrooms, Principal Coleman knocks on the door. I’m just about to thank my lucky stars when I also see the sheriff just behind him.   
“Sorry to interrupt," Principal Coleman apologizes to Mr. Clarke. "But may I borrow Michael, Lucas, and Dustin?" The boys all go to leave, following our principal, while the sheriff looks sternly at me. I feel bad, and guilty like I’ve done something wrong. Plus I know this guy’s story as mom gossips constantly. He had a daughter, the same age as us, and she died of cancer so his wife divorced him and he moved to work here again. He turned back to the Principal and jabs his thumb at me, “She seems to be buddy-buddy with them, how about we ask her too?”  
“Not a problem,” Coleman glances back into the door, his brow furrowed like he’s trying to remember my name. Of course, he wouldn’t, I don’t stick out much. I look like most of the other girls at this school; brown hair, kinda short, hazel eyes. If my name was to show up in his mind, it’d be because of my dumb-ass brother or my parents, because I don’t go in competitions or do sport or get in trouble, I’m the Harrington that just exists and dwells in the corner. The principal is at a loss and I can tell, so I just hang my head and file out the door behind the boys. I thank god that no one is in the hallway, otherwise I would be dead by tomorrow morning, but for now, it was just my stomach writhing in a knot because I don’t associate with these boys and yet have to be interrogated with them.  
My ears fill with the indistinct chatter of overlapping arguments. Three boys going head-to-head, determined to be the one to get the first and last word. I don't even hear any of it. I’m crammed into a two-person couch with Mike and the two other boys called Dustin and Lucas. It’s horrible and I’m being elbowed in the gut by Lucas, and am two inches from being pushed onto the floor altogether. Across from us sits the chief and his deputies. The chief watches on as the deputies struggle to keep up with the ramblings while trying to write down words on notepads.   
"Okay, okay, okay," Chief Jim Hopper holds out a hand, letting out a sigh of annoyance. The boys quickly fall into silence.   
"One at a time, all right?" He points a finger in my direction. "You," He addresses. "You're being awfully quiet."   
My eyes lock with the chief's, and he holds my stare. I break the stare and glance at the boys beside me, before standing up. “I don’t even know why I’m here. I don’t know these people. I was just meant to be getting extension work from Mr. Clarke.”  
“Do you know who Will Byers is?” I shake my head rapidly, before slowing.  
“Wait, is he the one with the brown hair and the bowl cut and the single mom?”  
“So you do know who he is. You can sit back down, Miss Harrington.”  
“But I don’t know him, I only heard about his mom because of my mom, she gossips a lot.” I can see the sheriff grit his teeth, his eyes look bloodshot. I remember mom saying to her friends when she had them over that he was an alcoholic, she’d even heard that he drank while on duty too. Was he sober literally right now, who knew?   
Hopper shakes his head, "You know more," He corrects before acknowledging only the boys. "You three were the last to see Will before he disappeared." He shifts his finger to Mike at the other end of the couch. "You," He addresses firmly. "You said he takes what?"  
"Mirkwood," Mike answers.   
"Mirkwood?" Hopper repeats, speaking as if he's unsure it's a real word. He glances to his closest deputy, "Have you ever heard of Mirkwood?"   
The deputy doesn't look up from his notepad as he responds, "I have not," He confirms. "It sounds made up to me."  
"It's from Lord of the Rings," Lucas explains. "Well, The Hobbit," Dustin clarifies, shrugging his shoulders. Both Lucas and I let out sighs of annoyance, knowing that the fact Dustin had just thrown out was completely irrelevant. I just want to leave and these boys were taking so much time and effort just to prolong that. Crossing my arms, I huffed and heaved myself as far back into the chair as I could, preparing myself to wait it out.  
"It doesn't matter!" He snaps at Dustin. "He asked!" Dustin defends. Lucas raises his voice and puts his tongue to the back of his teeth, "He asked!" He mocks, slurring his words as if to sound like Dustin. I close my eyes and just start to block out what the three idiots on the couch with me were saying and doing.


	2. Escaping the Den of an Overbearing Mother

“After school, you go straight home. All of you.” The sheriff looked at each of the boys, making full eye contact with them before resting his eyes upon me. I just nodded my head, hoping that this was where the interrogation would be wrapped up. The sheriff seemed to know I was thinking that, so he continued talking, “That means no biking around looking for your friend, no investigating, no-nonsense. This isn't some ‘Lord the Rings’ book-”  
"-The Hobbit." Dustin had wanted to be a smartass and interject, I glared at him. He looked over and then lowered his head sheepishly, at least he wasn’t a complete idiot.  
The police sheriff started again, “Do I make myself clear?” With no response from the boys, he repeated himself firmer, “I make myself clear?”   
The boys shared such obvious looks. Worried. Shaken by his tone. They nodded. Once Principal Coleman had decided to excuse us, I was already halfway out the door. 

By the time school had ended, I was eager to head out the door and go home. Pedaling my wheels as fast as possible, I jumped the curb and swerved around our neighbor’s rose bushes. The brakes squealed as I stopped before running into the garage door. I open the back door to the garage, seeing mom’s wood-paneled car.  
“Shit,” I swore under my breath, before parking the bike and heading inside. Ok, Gen, just try not to be loud. Be inconspicuous. You got this. Of course, my dweeb brain did not ‘got this.’ Closing the doors quietly, I turned and my backpack banged into the wall, almost knocking one of mom’s antique vases.   
“Steve? Gen? Is that you two?” I could hear mom call from the kitchen, her heels click-clacking as she moved about.  
“Shi- Uh, no mom. Just me. Steve dropped me home, he had a, uh, thing.” I walked into the kitchen hoping she wouldn’t be suspicious.  
“Okay, sweetheart. Would you like a snack? I’ve got some sandwiches. I’ve just got some pies and casserole in the oven for when we have to leave you behind.” I could see her get misty-eyed, of course. She wasn’t keen on leaving Steve and me here alone for a week. Although, I highly doubted my airhead brother would notice, let alone care. Plus it was too late of a notice to invite Grandma, she was on holiday in Oregon.   
“No, no. Thanks. I’m okay, Mom. And we’ll be fine.” I shook my head, trying to figure out how to leave the kitchen without her wanting to ask about my day. I smiled and started towards the stairs before turning, “You’re hair looks nice, Mom. Cool color.”  
With her blushing and distracted by the lie, I raced up the stairs. It was just bullshit, her hair looked the exact same, and it was pretty much just a waste of money from my view. But it made her happy, so I might as well use it. Closing my bedroom door, I slid down it, throwing my bag as close to the edge of my bed as possible.   
While my room wasn’t as pink and princessy as my mother wanted, it wasn’t my dream room. Partially because she would rearrange everything in view each time I left the house. My mom wanted me to have a ‘sensible’ bed, like my brother and her and Dad. Mother thought I was ludicrous for wanting a loft bed and had argued with Dad over it since he caved in and bought me one. It was a black wooden framed in the corner and had a desk and a set of shelves that I used to store my books, countless pens, a cassette radio, and a CB radio. The walls were a soft purple, which was my way of appeasing my mother whilst also having the room feel somewhat like mine. The pictures and posters on the walls were of foxes and stars and other bullshit quotes my mother thought would make me want to be like her. I changed out of the godforsaken pink dress and into some comfortable jeans and a stripy sweater before resting at my desk. I turned on the radio and just scrolled through the channels with the dial, waiting for anything but static. Getting bored, I turned the other radio on, a random Elton John song coming to life. Turning the dial, so that it hushed a bit, I continued to switch frequencies on the CB. I stopped for a second, hearing a dead frequency, just the one I wanted. I grabbed the microphone and went live.  
“Good afternoon, my dear non-listeners. You’re listening to Gen’s Rad Radio. I’m Gen, and life is shit.” I laughed, taking my finger off the transmitter. This was so dumb, but at least I didn’t write my life in some dumb diary for my mother to find. If she knew how lame my life was, she would find a way to micromanage me, and wouldn’t go with dad on the trip. Not that I wanted Dad to go, but Mom could be extremely overbearing at times.   
It would be quite an understatement to say that I was a daddy’s girl, and everyone in our family knew that he would spoil me rotten if Mom wasn’t around. See, my parents were close chums with the Holloway’s, we’d even had Thanksgiving together a few times when I was very little. Their daughter, Heather, was the same age as Steve, and it was as if my Mom and Janet had been trying to set them up. It failed, but Tom had given Steve the radio, challenging him to see what he could make of it. Steve couldn’t care less, and so it sat in the garage, collecting dust until Mom fought Dad over wanting to throw it out. I’d just snuck around and stole it before she could catch on, and raced it up into my room. My God, that was an earful of yelling and a week of being grounded.   
I grabbed the microphone and climbed the rungs to splay flat on my bed; looking up at the ceiling. My mind began to wonder as Duran Duran began to play, what did happen to the other DnD player, Will. Was he dead? Did he get taken? Mom had told me that his parents had divorced, what if his dad took him? I remember seeing his mom and brother when we used to go into town as a family at times, they looked quite down on their luck. I know that it sounds bad, but I would’ve faked his death as murder or abduction to collect the insurance money, then have him just live with his Grandma. Dad had told me about things like it, because he worked in insurance and stuff, he said that the lengths people go to when they’re desperate is incredible. Another thought popped into my head; what if he ran away? I’ve thought about it before, packing my stuff and leaving, disappearing to my Grandma’s because of all the family shit and the only person who even cares what I want is Dad and he’s barely around. Eh, that’s another problem for another day.  
I flipped onto my stomach as Cyndi Lauper began to play, pulling myself to the corner of my bed. My top half well over the side, I grabbed my bag strap and hauled it up onto the bed with me. Pulling out the textbooks, I read through Mr. Clarke’s homework and answered his questions in my book. I delved into the bottom of my bag and pulled out the worst book ever for an English assignment, Lord of the Flies. Why was I supposed to care about some boys fighting each other on an island? How was it fair, why didn’t Golding make a version with girls? Why was there no girls stuck on an island version, because that would’ve been more interesting? I found myself humming as I pulled my hair back into a ponytail to keep it out of my face, trying in vain to match the tune of Tainted Love.   
“Genevieve! Dinner!”  
“Coming, Mom!” I was brought out of my stupor of staring at the same page of Lord of the Flies, putting the book down and racing downstairs. I watched as Mom served peas and broccoli and Brussel sprouts onto each plate that was already laden with gravy and steak and potatoes. I watched as she only moved between three, Dad’s plate at the head of the table remaining clean and empty. “Is he working late again?”  
“Yes, Sweetie. It’s so we can get away early tomorrow morning.” I nodded and sat down, opening a bottle of ketchup and squirting it onto my potatoes. As Mom picked up her cutlery she nodded to my brother and I, “What did you do today?”  
“Just the regular, I went around to Tommy’s after school-”  
“-Gen said you had practice.” My dweeby brother looked down before smirking, “Yeah, Tommy and I wanted to practice some moves. One on one, y’know?”  
It was clear that Mom didn’t know but wasn’t going to argue with him so she just nodded before looking at me. I gulped down a mouthful of steak and gravy before stammering, “Well, uh, I just, I just hung out with Melany and Josie and Sarah like on Friday.” Once the lie had been set, my nerves settled with them, and I was able to continue with less of a stammer. “Sarah says that her little sister fell down the stairs and had to get a cast because she broke her arm.”  
“Oh, that’s terrible. Injuries are terrible, if I make a casserole and label it and put it in the fridge for them, will you give it to her? The poor girl.”  
I nodded, shoveling more food into my mouth to distract myself. When I had no more greens to consume, I looked up again. The table had been silent until Steve decided to speak.  
“When will Dad be back?”  
“Why? Are you going somewhere?” I tease, to which my shin is met with a violent kick. “Ow! Mom!”  
“Genevieve, stop instigating. Steve, I will gladly make your father go on his trip alone.”  
“I’m not instigating, I bet he’s going to Nancy’s,” I spoke her name in a singsong way, to which Steve shot daggers at me. “Ha! Mom, see? It’s true.”  
My mother, fed up with our bickering, sighed and started to clear the table. I went back upstairs, and I heard the front door slam. I raced to my window to see Steve climb into his car and back out of the driveway before heading down the road. I knew it. Climbing back onto my bed, I was just about to turn my cassette radio off since I hated Rick Astley, when the CB radio roared to life. I heard the voice of Mike Wheeler.  
“Lucas? It's Mike. You copy? Lucas?”  
It must have been Lucas who answered because I couldn’t hear a lisp. “Hey, it’s Lucas.”  
I sat in silence, tempted to send my transmitter live, but also wanting to see where this conversation went. Mike quickly replied to Lucas, “I know it's you. And say "over" when you're done talking or I don't know you're done. Over.:  
It was evident in Lucas’ tone that he was starting to get pissed off, and I wasn’t holding it against him. Mike hadn’t said over at the start, so he shouldn’t have been trying to act all high and mighty. “I'm done. Over.”  
“I'm worried about Will. Over.” Why Mike would be worried about the missing boy could have been for a number of reasons, maybe Mike gave him the idea to run away, or fake his death. I leaned closer to the edge of my bed, my head and ponytail hanging off the side like a bat. My left hand also dangling, holding the microphone.  
“Yeah. This is crazy. Over.”   
“I was thinking... Will could've cast Protection last night. But he didn't. He cast Fireball. Over.” Is this kid seriously worried about a move his very much missing friend played in a game? Was he for real? ‘Cause that’s kinda bogus if it is.  
“What's your point? Over.”  
“My point is... he could've played it safe. But he didn't. He put himself in danger to help the party. Over.”  
There was a moment of silence and I was trying to lean down and angle myself to turn up the volume in case I was missing something when my weight repositioned and I fell off the bed, my left hand pressed onto the transmitting button as I fell. “Shit,” I audibly winced, pulling myself up using the arm of my chair.  
“Hello? Who’s on this channel?” My eyes widened, as I looked down at the microphone. I shook as I brought it closer to me.  
“It’s uh, it’s Gen. From earlier today. I was bored and thought it was a dead channel.”  
Lucas’s voice crackled over the radio, “How much did you hear? Over.”  
“All of it. Why are you talking about board game moves when your friend is missing?”  
“It’s a long story, and who knows who else is listening? How far away do you live? Over.”  
“I have a bike, I’m not far from where you said Mirkwood is. Maybe ten minutes?” After each sentence, I was turning my mic off quicker so as to not let Mike or Lucas hear my laughing at how they hadn’t called out my non-use of ‘over.’  
“Okay, we’ll meet there. Bring flashlights. I have to sneak out otherwise Mom will kill me. Over.”  
Lucas was the last to speak. “Meet me in ten. Over and out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes! Two chapters in two days, that's a literal record for me! Maybe it's cause I don't wanna get flayed. Oof.


	3. The Brain Power of Three Dweebs: 101

How was I supposed to escape the house? Mom was downstairs clicking around waiting for dad, and Steve was at the Wheeler’s being an idiot. I got my raincoat on and peered out my window, it was well near pitch black. Turning back to my bed, I shoved through the drawers until I grasped a flashlight.  
“Hell yeah,” I cheered triumphantly went it glowed to life at the switch of the button. The next thing that had to be done was to escape Alcatraz. I opened my window, peering over the edge with the torch. The trellis covered in dying foliage was right below me. I could reach it If I was careful enough. Putting the torch in my mouth, I swung both legs over so that I was sitting on the window cill. I had to take a few deep breaths, calm down, this wouldn't be a repeat of last time. I wouldn't break a bone this time. I hoped. Closing your eyes is something you should never consider doing when jumping from the second story but hey, I'm slightly a dweeb. I turned and lowered myself onto the trellis-like you would when you were entering a pool without a ladder, my tiptoes touching the trellis. Thank god, I couldn't tell if I was crying form euphoria or if my face was already saturated from the rain. I wasn't about to be a dumbass and fall off so I did the sensible thing and lowered down so that I was crawling my way across the trellis. Turing and climbing down the side that was nailed tight to the side of the house, I raced around to the backdoor and grabbed the key from under the pot plant. Grabbing my bike from the garage and sticking the key into my pocket for later, I jumped on and started pedaling fast to fight the road's slipperiness. I cycled down Kerley, spying some flashlights and used my own to signal them. I drove off the road and onto the brush, pushing my bike beside a tree.  
"Hey, weirdos, where are we going? Do you have a ma-” I was cut off by Mike clamping a hand over my mouth. I stepped on his foot and pushed away from him. “Mike, what the hell?”  
“Why’s she here?” Dustin asked, his lisp very prominent. Clearly, he hadn’t been notified about my accidental listening in.   
“Because she heard us talking about Will and got interrogated with us,” Mike answered before Lucas could fire a quick retort.  
“Yeah, duh.” I glared at him shortly, he lowered his gaze before nodding. “So where did you think Will went?”  
“We don’t know, he was racing me home for my X-Men 134, and he just disappeared. Mike says that Joyce called his mom this morning.” I nodded, wrapping my arms closer to my body, starting to shake slightly from the cold rain.  
“Well, you realize that you won’t be able to find Will or anyone out there, it’s too dark. And it’s cold, why would anyone want to be out?” I turned my flashlight out to the distance. There was nothing but pitch black trees and bushes and decaying leaves from earlier in the season.  
“For once, I agree with her. We could get lost out here, Mike.” Lucas complained too.   
“Fine! You can go home then, but if you or Dustin or me, if we’d gone missing, I know that Will would be out trying to look for us.” Mike, Dustin, and Lucas had clustered into an odd circle, fighting about whether they should go home or not. I was set apart from that group, surveying the darkness when a sudden movement in the distant jolted me to attention. I swung my torch in the direction it had gone, seeing nothing different. I turned back to the boys, mouth open to ask if they’d seen it too, but waved the thought away. Looking back, a kid our age stood in front of me, a yellow shirt hanging over their skinny frame like a potato sack, and hair so close-shaven they could’ve been bald.  
“Uh, guys…” I held my torch on them and strained my eyes so they wouldn’t blink for fear that they’d disappear the second I looked away. “Guys!”  
“What?!” Lucas half-yelled before faltering into silence. The boys continued to gape behind me, so I did what I thought someone smart, like my dad, would do. I stepped forward and reached out to touch the stranger’s arm.   
Teeth chattering, I asked, “Who- who are you?”

Mike’s house was the closest, and we’d taken the kid there, we were in his basement and standing around the stranger as they dripped rainwater onto the couch.   
“Is there a number we can call for your parents?” Mike leaned in towards the stranger who I had only just figured out was a girl from her face structure and eyes. Her eyes just looked back at him, unblinking and startled.  
“Where’s your hair? Do you have cancer?” Dustin’s lisp had cut through Mike’s next sentences, and Lucas interrupting next.  
“Did you run away?”  
“Are you in some kind of trouble?”  
“Is that blood?” I rolled my eyes at Dustin’s dimwittedness, of course it was blood. The girl had been running in the forest in the dark for God knows how long, with no shoes, of course she’d have been scraped and cut and bleeding. I’d sat on the chair by the boys’ abandoned DnD campaign and board, the boys crowding the girl. I felt bad for her, being trapped by the endless questions. What brought me back to reality was Dustin stupidly clapping near her ear.  
“Not deaf.”  
“You idiots, she mightn’t speak any English.” I stood up, shoving Dustin away before sitting beside her, asking her questions in any language I could remember from the back corner of the library. Of course, that was just German, French, Spanish and Latin, and the same phrase of ‘can you understand me?’ which failed repeatedly.   
“All right, that’s enough. She’s just cold and scared.” Mike spoke gently, before turning around and digging in a giant wicker hamper of clothes. He pulled out a jumper and sweatpants, balling them together and giving them to her. “These are clean, okay?”  
The girl nodded before starting to lift the hem of the oversized shirt dress she was wearing. The boys went crazy, screaming at her no. Dustin had looked away, his hands cupping the sides of his face, removing his peripheral vision, and cursing God with it.  
I shook my head, chuckling slightly at the dweebs. I grabbed the girl’s free hand, and led her to where Mike had blindly pointed out was the bathroom. I turned around so that the girl was standing just inside the bathroom’s threshold, her hands were pure ice from the rain outside; I looked down at her hands too, they were soft, like they’d never worked hard, and just above her wrist was a tattoo. It was curious, a little 011 like a prisoner of war from the time of the Nazis. I opened my mouth to ask her about it before closing it again, believing that she wouldn’t understand me. I was going to leave the girl alone, and was closing the door when her long slender fingers wrapped around the edge.  
“No.”  
“So you can speak? Cool. Do you know how to get changed? I can stand here and be lookout for you if you’d like?”  
She nodded, “Yes.”  
I closed the door just the tiniest fraction more while looking her in the eyes. “Just come back out when you’re done, okay?”  
I heard no response before going over to the boys and turning them around. “You can look now, she’s in the bathroom. And she can speak.”  
“I only heard yes and no. Mike’s sister can say more than that. And she’s three!” Lucas retorted.  
“She tried to get naked,” Dustin interjected, before mimicking the girl taking her dress off - as if we hadn’t seen it happen in person moments earlier. I heard the bathroom door creak, so I ignored the three dweebs to go and make sure the girl was ok.  
I knocked on the bathroom door and asked if she was okay; again, only to be met with silence.   
“She’s an escapee in the point.” How could Lucas assume that this girl was a criminal of sorts? I mean, the shaved head, and the tattoo, and the blood - scratch that, I could see why Lucas thought that way.   
I leaned against the doorframe waiting for the girl to be done. I was dreading going home a tad, in that what if I couldn’t make it back up the trellis, or what if I got caught. My house would be worse than… than…  
“Alcatraz.” Lucas’s morbid tone finished my thoughts.  
“Wait, you weren’t meant to be out either?” Mike, Lucas and Dustin shook their heads in unison. “Good, because I don’t want my Mom to find out, otherwise she’ll flip and won’t leave with my Dad tomorrow for his trip. And I hate to admit it, but you guys are kinda cool to be around.” God, I sounded like a dweeb that would be in their group.  
“All right, here’s the plan. She sleeps here tonight.” Mike cut the silence, and I slid down the wall. His plan had been simple, except for Lucas’s freakout about letting a girl stay over.  
“That’s all well and good, but it’s absolute bullshit. I should take her home to my place. That way you won’t get in trouble if your parents wake up and find her-”  
“-But you just said-”  
“-My parents are going to be gone for two weeks on their trip.”  
“Your mom might stay behind if she sees an escapee.” Why was Lucas so fond of the term ‘escapee?’ I wanted to know.  
“Pfft, she’ll be too worked up by her last minute packing to notice.” Mike still looked displeased by my argument, so I raised my hand. “All in favor of having the girl go home with me, say aye.”  
I smirked at Mike as Lucas and Dustin both raised their hands sheepishly.   
“Mike, she’s a girl, she might be better at looking after her than you.” Mike huffed aloud, for once Lucas had used some common sense.  
“Good, plus she has this tattoo on her hand.”  
“She’s just a kid though,” Mike said.  
“That’s what I thought too.”  
“I’m telling you, she’s a loony,” Lucas said, twirling his finger in a circle around his temple.  
“Hey! Knock it off, you’re more a loony than she is.” I pushed him slightly before poking my tongue out. I recomposed myself before continuing, “It’s a zero-one-one.”  
“Did you read it the right way? It could be a hundred and ten.” Dustin started before his voice died out at my death glare.  
“I’m not stupid, it’s an eleven.”  
Mike piped up again, “Maybe that’s her name: Eleven. We could call her El for short.”  
Lucas started laughing, “You want to give the loony, whose name is a number, a nickname. Nuh uh, no way.”  
The door beside me had creaked open further and out stepped the girl named Eleven. I smiled at her, grabbing her hand gently again. “You ready? You’re coming home with me.”  
I walked to the back door, ready to go outside -  
“Uh, Gen? She hasn’t got a raincoat.”  
I look around and groan before pulling off mine. I hold it out for Eleven to put on, before handing her my flashlight. In a careful pull, the door is open and the rain is still lashing down. I turn to the triage of boys.  
“We’ll be back tomorrow morning, promise.”

It wasn’t easy showing Eleven how to ride on the back of my bike several blocks back home, but once we were there it was fine.   
“Excuse me,” I apologised before shoving my hand into the pocket of the raincoat, my numb and tingling hands clasping around the frozen metal key. Pulling it out and jamming it into the lock, we coaxed my bike inside the garage door. Now my mind was running at a million miles an hour, realising that there was no way I could get both Eleven and I up the trellis without slipping or breaking something. I closed the door behind us, careful to put the key back into my pocket; I’ll put it back under the pot plant tomorrow. I held my ear to the door connecting our garage to the living room, my breath caught in my throat. I heard nothing. Pulling the door open, I dragged Eleven along with me slowly up the stairs and to my bedroom. The wood of the door creaked slightly, and I could hear hushed muttering. The water on my skin did nothing but worsen as goosebumps prickled my spine. I shoved El into the darkness of my room, before standing silently in the hall.  
“Yeah, Mom and Dad are going to be gone.” Steve was undoubtedly talking on the phone to his friend Tommy. “Yuh, we’ll just lock her in the basement or kick her out. No way is my sister going to be hanging with us.”  
Rolling my eyes and closing the door carefully, I felt my breathing returned to normal.   
I looked around in the semi-darkness of the room, making out Eleven’s silhouette. For some reason I felt giddy, probably because I’d never had someone stay in my room before. I started running around the room on my tiptoes: taking the raincoat from Eleven and hanging it on the hook on my door, turning the electric blanket on to keep the bed toasty, changing into pyjamas and giving Eleven a pair of flannelettes to change into too. We were all set for sleep, and I’d given Eleven a leg up onto the loft bed. I took off my glasses and left them on the desk before climbing into the bed with her.  
“So, this is my home.”  
“What is home?”  
“It’s like where you eat and sleep and live with your mom and dad. And sometimes you have siblings, like I have a big brother who’s a mega-airhead. And tonight, you get to sleep here with me.”  
“Is this my home?”  
“It can be, but aren’t your parents missing you? Do you know your mom and dad?”  
I could feel Eleven shake her head from beside mine on the pillow. Despite the electric blanket still emitting a slight warmth, the room felt cooler, more despondent. How did someone not have a mom or dad?  
“Do you have someone that looks after you? Like my mom, she cooks food for me and lets me sneak a little bit of her brownies before dinner, and tried to show me how to garden and hold tea parties. And my dad, he showed me how to fix the television when the antennae play up, and what teams to go for in baseball and he gives me cool stuff like my radio. My mom and dad both hug me and kiss me and tell me that they love me.”  
Eleven shook her head again, and with each head shake, my heart sank lower and lower. Someone had to show this thin and near bald girl that she was special.  
“Oh. Well, this can be your home too. And I’ll love you. I’ll show you my radio tomorrow and my overalls and my jeans and sweaters and we’ll have waffles for breakfast and we’ll say goodbye to my parents ‘cause they’re going away for two weeks.”  
The more I talked, the more my eyelids drooped and before I knew it, I could hear only the slow, rhythmic breathing of Eleven’s matching mine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not good at this and have had the lowest of low motivation levels so thank you for being patient.


	4. Yes, Steve is Clearly Responsible Enough to Look After Me, Mom

I awoke to the loudest kerfuffle downstairs rolling of luggage wheels and mom’s heels. Sitting up, I stretched and yawned, looking to my right and laying my eyes on a tiny ball of flannelette and the buzzed scalp of Eleven. She was so still I had to lean in closer to check that she was still breathing. By accident, I leaned too far and my hair fell over my shoulder and onto her nose, causing it to itch and twitch. I just looked at the stirring girl as her doe brown eyes opened and stared around in shock.   
“Hey, it’s just me.” I moved back to give her personal space as she sat up and stared about the room. “It looks a little different than it did last night. Oh, and good morning, El.”  
“Morning, Gen.”  
I grappled down the ladder before feeling around the desk for my glasses. With clearer vision, I walked to the closet and dramatically pulled both doors open. A toothy grin spread on my face as I turned back to El who was still on the bed. “Feel like getting dressed?”  
I grabbed several different shirts, skirts, dresses, and pants from the hangers and drawers and threw them onto the bed for El to judge. I also dug through my costume box, grabbing my wigs from dressing up. I turned triumphantly to El, a wig in each hand.  
“This one’s from going trick-or-treating as Laurie, she’s from Halloween and is so cool.” I waved the blonde one. “And the brown one is from when I went as Alice from Friday the 13th. I didn’t want to cut my hair so Mom let me buy a wig for it. She’s a final girl and is one of my favorite characters.”  
I gave them to El, “Which one do you wanna wear?”  
El looked over at the mirror in the corner before raising the brunette wig to her head. She wasn’t completely sure how to put it on but tried her best, the bob of hair dangling at weird angles into her eyes. I laughed at her attempt slightly before beckoning her closer to me so I could adjust it. El also picked a pink long sleeve shirt and my corduroy overall skirt.  
“You’ll want stockings with that, otherwise you’ll get cold.” I gave her a pair of my heart stockings. I changed into a pair of my jeans and color block sweater. I tied my hair up into a ponytail atop my head and pulled El to stand beside me in front of the mirror. “Look at you. You’re so pretty.”  
“Pretty.” El blushed, and I reached for her hand.   
“Do you want to talk to Mike’s mom? She might be able to find someone who’ll help you.”  
“No.”  
“What? But why?”  
“Bad.”  
“Bad what? People? Did someone hurt you?” She raised her hand, the fingers forming a gun. El pointed the finger gun first at herself and then at me. “Ok, got it. Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”  
My hand was clasped tight around her other hand; my stomach rumbled and I immediately knew we’d both need breakfast.  
Heading downstairs into the kitchen was easy. I grabbed some Eggo’s and popped them into the toaster to cook. I grabbed glasses and poured orange juice for El and I. “You’ll like it, trust me.”  
I gulped a bit down for her to see, causing El to laugh at my orange mustache from the pulp. El started to drink it as Mom’s heels clicked behind me.  
“Yes, George. The kids have plenty of leftovers, I just want to know that they’ll be fine. Oh-” Mom had noticed El and had a hand on her hip about to ask.  
“Mom, this is El, my best friend. She stayed with us last night remember? Her mom said I could go over there this afternoon.” I lied and my heart pounded and split into two minds; one was guilty about lying, and the other half hoping that Mom wouldn’t question it.  
“I don’t recall you saying you were going over there from dinner last night. Genevieve, you know that I don’t like being neglected in all your plans.”  
“I know, and I’m sorry Mom. It was stupid of me to forget. I guess that I didn’t want to make you frazzled over going on dad’s trip.” I hugged Mom around the waist, remembering how it used to get me out of trouble when I was little.  
“You know that I’m going to miss you when I’m gone, it’s like my little baby is growing up.” Mom started sniffling a tad, “Soon you won’t even want to talk to me or need me.”  
“Peg! We have to go, we can’t be late.” Dad called from the garage.  
I guided my mother out to the garage, mouthing for El to just wait there for me to come back. I smiled at my dad as he closed the car boot with a thud.  
“How’s my little pumpkin? Are you going to miss us?”  
“Obviously, Dad. And I’ll try to make sure Steve is up in time for school while you’re gone.”  
“That’s my girl.” Dad had his arms behind his back, holding my present. He always gave me one when he went on business trips. Bringing the wrapped gift in front of me, I reached for it. The wrapping came away with ease and I gasped at the Supercomm in my hands.   
“Thank you, Daddy. I love it.”  
“That’s good then pumpkin. Now I have to go, so you need to behave.” Dad waved as he climbed into the driver’s seat and backed out of the driveway with Mom reapplying her makeup after her wave of tears.  
I ran back inside to El, finding her gorging on the waffles. “Nice.”  
Refilling the toaster with more, I grabbed a packet of chips and a bottle of orange soda and moved them to my backpack. Thumps came from the stairs and I moved to a chair beside El as Steve came into the kitchen, immediately chowing into Mom’s cold lasagne. He noticed us and put to dish and fork down.  
“Where are you two going to be tonight?”  
“Anywhere but here.”  
“Good choice.” He put the dish back in the fridge before grabbing his keys. “Later dweebs.”  
The door slammed shut, so I donned the backpack and clambered onto my bike with El. The ride to the Wheeler’s was beginning to engrain itself into my mind since I’d ridden it that much within the past two days. I dropped the bike at the basement door. I knocked on the door with El beside me, her eyes flitting around in anguish as if someone was going to spring out of the bushes and abduct her. The door swung open and Mike greeted us. He grinned as he saw me, but his eyes softened and started to glaze over slightly as he looked at El.  
“Mike, we can’t tell your mom about her. El’s in trouble, there are bad people after her.”  
“Uh-huh.” He wasn’t even listening, instead solely focussed on El. I shook Mike by the shoulders.  
“Hey! I was talking.”  
“Sorry,” was his sheepish reply. He looked down as I explained how El didn’t have a family and was in trouble. He nodded through it all as El sat on the couch and looked around the room.  
“Mike, are you ready for school?” His mother called from upstairs in the house. Mike paid no attention to her, just looking around for his bag. The door of the basement opened and light poured in, forming a silhouette of Mrs. Wheeler. “Mike! Who are these two?”  
“My name’s Genevieve, I’m one of Mike’s friends.” I walk up the stairs to Mrs. Wheeler. “That’s my sister El.”  
“We’ll have to meet at another time. The boys are coming over for tea tonight if you’d like to join us. Then we can learn a bit more about you both. Now off to school, you three.”  
I nodded, before turning away as Mrs. Wheeler closed the door behind her. “Mike, I think going to school might be a bit much for El. I mean, my parents have already left and my airhead brother is at school-”  
“Yeah, I get it.” Mike huffed and crossed his arms, clearly put out by my realization. His eyes kept darting to El as she headed up the steps to my bike.   
“You can come over if you want. You know that, right?” Finally, Mike’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. He nodded before following El and me up the stairs and racing to his bike.   
El and I rode my bike a few feet ahead of Mike so he knew when to turn - and as always, my bike found its way back to my family’s brown and brick house. We dumped the bikes around the back of the house beside the trellis I had used the night before to go on an adventure. I opened the sliding glass door from outside the pool, ushering the other two in before slamming it and locking the door shut.

“Okay, so that’s the house. I wouldn’t go in Steve’s room though, it smells bad and he’d kill anyone who finds his secret stash of hair products.” I’d invited Mike and El to my room. Mike was sitting at my desk, and El was splayed out on my bed after having to go through my whole house tour. Sitting on my floor, I opened my backpack filled with food and my new Supercomm. Glancing up, Mike was turning in the chair and obviously quite bored. “Wanna set it up for me?”  
“Why? You seem to be good at electronics.”  
“Eh, kinda. You just seem bored is all.” Mike nodded and accepted the comm, beginning to connect it to the channels the rest of his friends were on.  
“Here, we’re usually on channel 5.”   
I leaned past him and adjusted my CB radio to match it. Sending my microphone to live, the Supercomm fizzled to life too, a crackle came through the speaker in it. I laughed, we’d done it. I looked at my new friends, El, and Mike who had also donned smiles. I moved the mic closer to my mouth before speaking into it, hearing the same words fizzle over the comm.  
“This is Major Gen Harrington, get down. The Russian’s have got planes right over your base. I repeat, get down!”  
Mike erupted into a bout of laughter at it, as I continued to grasp the microphone as I started to duck for cover under my desk.   
“Captain Wheeler here, we hear you Major, loud and clear! Our base is going into lockdown.” Mike clambered onto the loft with El, proceeding to throw my comforter over both of them. The crackle from the Supercomm lessened the second the blanket had consumed them. I looked in the mirror and saw the two obvious outlines huddled in the middle of the bed. I grabbed some of my heavy snow jackets from when Dad had taken us to Canada for Christmas and tossed them at the outlines.  
“Captain, come in! The Russian’s are laying fire to your base, what are your casualties? Over.”  
“Major, we’re all still alive here, but we’re running low on supplies.” I nodded at Mike’s response, before loading my arms with chips and soda, climbing the ladder and getting under the covers with Mike and El.   
“Hello Captain Wheeler and Sergeant El, I come bearing refreshments.” And with that, we dug into the snacks.   
It was after lunch had been eaten, that the three of us had stretched out, my legs dangling over the side of the bed. El was holding the Supercomm as Mike tried to teach me about Dungeons and Dragons.  
“So who’s who in your party?”  
“Well I’m our paladin; Lucas is our ranger; Dustin’s the bard and Will’s our cleric.”  
I raised my arms above me and rolled my wrists as I hummed in acknowledgment. “Would El and I be able to join your party?”  
“Well, yeah. But I don’t know who you would be.”  
“So what happened in your last campaign?”  
“It was cool, we’d been planning it for ages. I was the dungeon master and made the other fight some Troglodytes and the Demogorgon. It got Will though-”  
A new voice spoke over Mike’s, it crackled with static. “-Should I stay or should I go?”  
The voice sang hollowly like it was lost and sad. Mike and I sat up, the voice was barely recognizable to me. Mike, however…   
“Will.”   
I looked at El, who was holding the Supercomm as it still crackled with Will’s voice. El’s nostril was a dark red, the blood starting to droop with weight downwards towards her lip.

**Author's Note:**

> It's bad I know, but please comment or do something that way I can try and continue it. And I do try and take other people's ideas into consideration 'cause I'm not the most creative.


End file.
